JD Diversity is committed to making the legal profession more inclusive and diverse. JD Diversity seeks to fulfill this commitment by providing an online community of diverse law students, professors, practitioners, and legal employers, allowing for information-sharing and honest communication. JD Diversity views diversity as encompassing race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and familial status. By creating this community, JD Diversity aims to ultimately help diverse attorneys achieve full inclusion and reach their highest potential within their places of employment, and in the profession at large.
What Spawned JD Diversity:
JD Diversity grew out of a desire to foster a stronger sense of community among diverse attorneys within the legal profession. The website aims to provide the type of inspiration and support that many attorneys of diverse backgrounds feel is missing from their firm experiences.
I. The Statistics:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 11 percent of lawyers are minorities, compared to approximately 25 percent of physicians/surgeons, 21 percent of accountants and 18 percent of college and university professors. Minorities comprise only 5 percent of all partners within U.S. law firms. Further, females comprise 29 percent of all lawyers in the United States. These disparate numbers were only part of the impetus for JD Diversity.
II. Diversity-Stifling Issues:
Isolation and Attrition:
The main inspiration for JD Diversity was the striking realization that diverse attorneys and law students often feel as if they are alone, lacking mentors and full and complete information about how to best navigate the legal profession. Through providing a forum, a comment section on its blog, and a networking community, JD Diversity provides the means for connections to be made amongst formerly disjointed diverse law students and legal professionals. In so doing, JD Diversity provides a safe platform for information-sharing and open, honest discussion of issues that are of particular interest to attorneys and law students. Additionally, JD Diversity’s News and Articles sections seek to keep members informed and offer helpful tips to facilitate professional development and law school success.
Further, attrition rates among diverse attorneys are highly problematic. The American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession recently found that women of color are leaving the profession at alarming rates, due in large part to harassment, denial of assignments and/or billable hours, denial of access to clients, and unfair performance evaluations. JD Diversity recognizes that other demographics (ie. men of color and white women) are also plagued by similar issues, even if their attrition rates are not as high. Therefore, JDDiversity.com brings all of these groups together to best address these issues with a view toward fostering authentic, enduring solutions.
Slow and Disorganized Dissemination of Information:
Prior to JDDiversity.com there was no central place where attorneys and law students could look for fellowship and scholarship information, information about upcoming diversity-related events, and updates on firms' diversity records and strategies. JD Diversity fills this void by providing this information in its Job Corner, and Event Calendar sections. Strategic partners in diversity will be able to list information about their upcoming diversity initiatives and events. As JDDiversity.com is designed to be a one-stop shop for diverse law students, the presence of this site serves to prevent the waste of time and resources by all parties involved in the struggle to change the face of the profession.
**JD Diversity is a community website, so it will ultimately become whatever the masses of its users want and need for it to be. Therefore, more services may be offered as more and more members take advantage of the site. Surely JD Diversity will ultimately become a vehicle for positive change and enlightenment within the profession.
